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Again and again we become Peter, repeating his denials of Jesus with the way we live. Martin Luther spoke of the great comfort that this insight affords: "For it is so very rich in comfort for all poor sinners, that a great man [Peter] suffers such a fall and yet receives grace and forgiveness" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 5, p. 404).
Encountered by a love that can overlook the greatest of falls, it is all the more likely that falls by lesser lights like us will be overlooked. And then we can sing with medieval mystic St. Catherine of Genoa of seeing on the cross a love so pure and clear that it separates us from ourselves, consumes all that we love, and sets us on fire until nothing is left in us but a yearning for God's love (Elmer O'Brien, editor, Varieties of Mystic Experience, p. 191). The Passion story of betrayal and suffering ignites a fire of love, a fire that destroys everything in the way of that fire except the fire itself, until all that is left is that fire of divine love which is burning from the cross.
Encountered by a love that can overlook the greatest of falls, it is all the more likely that falls by lesser lights like us will be overlooked. And then we can sing with medieval mystic St. Catherine of Genoa of seeing on the cross a love so pure and clear that it separates us from ourselves, consumes all that we love, and sets us on fire until nothing is left in us but a yearning for God's love (Elmer O'Brien, editor, Varieties of Mystic Experience, p. 191). The Passion story of betrayal and suffering ignites a fire of love, a fire that destroys everything in the way of that fire except the fire itself, until all that is left is that fire of divine love which is burning from the cross.
